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From: dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: playoff slugging + onbase avg.
Message-ID: <516@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Nov-85 13:35:15 EST
Article-I.D.: philabs.516
Posted: Tue Nov 19 13:35:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Nov-85 20:56:59 EST
References: <483@philabs.UUCP> <941@water.UUCP> <489@philabs.UUCP>
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Organization: Philips Labs, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 61

Frank Adams writes:
> 
> In article <513@philabs.UUCP> dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) writes:
> >But it's closer to 21 out of 42 than to 30 out of 42. If you really like
> >statistical arguments, how can you prefer an expectation of 30/42 to 21/42 
> >unless you are previously biased?
> 
> I never claimed to be unbiased.  

Obviously.

> I claimed that the results are consistent with my belief.  

If you are willing to go enough standard deviations away, ANY results are
consistent with any belief. Just the use of the word "belief" illustrates
the difference between our approaches to statistics. You choose those that
back up your preconceptions; I try to fit my ideas as closely as possible
to the observations.

> A statistically insignificant test proves nothing.  

You haven't shown it is statistically insignificant. You try to draw
such a fine line between evidence supporting my position, and evidence
supporting noone, but you obviously don't apply such rigorous standards
to yourself. Where is your evidence that the results of the last 25 series
do not constitute enough data? And don't forget, we can always go to the
game level. In other words, during the last series, StL won the first
two games in spite of KC having a higher SA+OBA in those two games. Since
the 25 series' results do show a lot of teams with higher SA+OBA losing
the series, there are probably a good deal of games in which the team with
higher SA+OBA lost. The number of games in those  25 series is nearly a
whole season's games, which is not likely insignificant.

> If you do not expect a positive result, it lets you go on not expecting a
> positive result.  But don't use that test to back up your argument; it is
> irrelevant.

Not if my argument is that those who expect a positive result have no
evidence. Do you remember the original postings, in which David Rubin
posted screen after screen of numbers which supposedly showed that
one player was superior to another on the basis of SA+OBA? My argument
is that there is no evidence to support SA+OBA as such an important
determinant of quality. The lack of a positive result in the last 25
World Series IS evidence to support my position.

Since you seem to be having trouble grasping this logical concept, let's
make an analogy. Suppose someone were to try to convince you that aliens
have been visiting the earth in flying saucers. Now, we have NO known
verified sightings of saucers (fragments in museums, etc.) so that there
is no positive evidence. This does not constitute negative evidence,
i.e., we have no evidence that there haven't been flying saucers, just a
lack of positive evidence. You are stating that this means it is OK to
believe in flying saucers, since "we don't know." I am stating that it
is not OK to believe in them, and particularly not OK to base decisions
on this belief, since there is no positive evidence for that belief.

If you were trying to program a computer to think, e.g., to be able to
examine data and form hypotheses, would you want it to form conclusions
which had no evidence backing them up?

					Paul Benjamin